Wireless communication systems are well known, and the operation of wireless communication systems are usually governed by published specifications, standards, and operating protocols. For example, Long Term Evolution (LTE) refers to a recent standard for mobile network technology, and the current LTE specification is published by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). LTE Advanced (LTE-A) is a proposed extension of LTE that is expected to be finalized in the year 2011.
A wireless device in an LTE system (i.e., a user equipment or UE device) may experience undesirable amounts of latency associated with power-up, initialization, and/or connection to the wireless network. Contention-based uplink access has been proposed as a way to reduce such latency. Contention-based uplink access would allow multiple UE devices to compete for uplink resources on a shared channel supported by the base station, in addition to or in lieu of the traditional uplink access scheme that utilizes dedicated and scheduled resources.
A successful deployment of contention-based uplink access will leverage certain access mechanisms, communication protocols, and procedures performed by the UE devices and the base station. Accordingly, it is desirable to have effective and reliable techniques and technologies that enable a wireless communication system to employ contention-based uplink access from UE devices to base stations.